


bird on the wire

by milqo



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F, i call this fic: i do whatever i want and no one but god can stop me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-05-18 10:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19332733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milqo/pseuds/milqo
Summary: this may or may not turn into a oneshot series. i mean, it definitely was, but then i was robbed & lost so so so many drafts for prompts i filled randomly when i was bored. still, finals are here and i'm just going to post this and hope for the best. oofhope you guys are doing well!





	1. Chapter 1

“Ellie,” Dina pulls on her wrist again when she doesn’t move from her position above a man not much older than them, his sandy hair moving slightly as he tilts his chin up. “Give me that,” she presses when Ellie refuses to lessen the hold on the switchblade, throwing her a look that almost burns.  

“I told you to _fuck off_ ,” she spits, hand poised up and pried closed. The man twitches on the ground and tries to change their positions, but fails when Ellie presses a knee on his gut. 

“I know him,” she says, mind racing with the way things are turning south too quickly for her to catch up _._ “He’s always with that other settlement. When they come to trade.”

Dina hears him talk about _Fireflies_ and _chop your head open_ and she feels like she shouldn’t be there, but she _is_ there listening to things she shouldn’t ever know about and she is vaguely reminded of her brother telling her that week that she was going to bite more than she could chew one day. Blood trickles down Ellie’s neck and hands and she feels sick – she’s never felt queasy about blood before but this, _Ellie_ , is something else.

She sees Maria on the opposite side of the crop field and raises her hand up obnoxiously until she approaches them, springing quickly into action when she realizes what’s going on. She exchanges a few anxious words with Ellie and her hands open like it’s easy, switchblade held safely in the inside of Maria’s jacket pocket. She doesn’t help the man to get up but he does so by himself and Dina thinks that maybe he has a broken nose, not the first time by the looks of it.

“There are no Fireflies anymore,” the town leader says curtly, with her _non-nonsense_ voice Dina has heard quite a few times before. “You’re staying here,” she says, gun aimed at his head when he makes up to go on his way, clutching his nose with his ruined shirt. Maria tilts Ellie’s chin up to check any injuries and leaves a trail of smudge behind. “Get some rest, eat something, take care of that hand of yours,” she motions to Ellie’s hand, an insistent red all over. “We’re talking about this later.”

Ellie lets out a weak _okay_ and suddenly she’s not the same girl she was minutes before. She’s shaking. In rage, in fear, she doesn’t know. All she knows is that she’s not okay and by extension, Dina is not okay either. Can’t be. No one answers when she calls out her mom in front of her home and she brings Ellie to the couch in the middle of the living room, holds her uninjured hand as Ellie leans her forehead on her shoulder, mouth open as she tries to get as much air as possible. 

She caresses Ellie’s hair, shushing her for minutes before she pulls back with a tear-stained face, wiping her nose with the sleeves of her shirt and sitting on the furthest seat of the couch as if physical distance could somehow shield her from opening herself up. Dina gets up, comes back with a wet towel dripping water on the ground she kneels on. The dirt and blood come away as she washes Ellie’s face, leaving behind gashes, cuts, a split lip and what looks like it will develop into a hell of a bruise on her cheek.

Dina moves the towel to Ellie’s hand and she lets out a surprised gasp, wincing at the pain it causes. “I think it’s broken,” Dina frowns. She pulls a sleeve of Ellie’s shirt up, tracing the scar there. “Did he see it?”

“I don’t know. That whole thing was so fucking weird.”

“Do you want to talk about…”

Ellie cringes, almost. “No,” she answers. “No,” more softly. “Sorry.”

Later that afternoon, Ellie stays quiet as one of the best medics in town, Morgan, patches her up. She doesn’t catch Dina's gaze even once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this may or may not turn into a oneshot series. i mean, it definitely was, but then i was robbed & lost so so so many drafts for prompts i filled randomly when i was bored. still, finals are here and i'm just going to post this and hope for the best. oof
> 
> hope you guys are doing well!


	2. Chapter 2

"Care to explain," Joel waves a hand around his own face, "That?"

"You should see the other guy," she gives him a lopsided smile, but the joke falls flat. Ellie brings a hand to her face, wincing when her fingers press against a sore spot. They come back dry – no blood, no brain matter – a good sign. She tangles her fingers together on her lap, twisting and knotting them in each other.  “Leo was being a dick as usual.  I wasn’t having it.”

“Tell me what he did,” Joel kneels in front of her, voice laced with concern. “Did he…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence but Ellie _knows_ where he’s going and she shakes her head, uncomfortably shifting her body. “Nothing – nothing like that. He, uh. Talked about how weird it was that I never show my arm. Tried to… to see what I was hiding underneath the,” she lifts the sleeves of her hoodie, two sizes smaller and firmly attached to her skin. “That’s all.”

Joel touches a bump on her forehead from when she hit her head on the table after Leo managed to throw her off balance. “You should stop picking fights with people who are bigger than you, kid.”

“I know,” Ellie sighs, frowning as she looks at an uninteresting stain in the cloth covering the kitchen table. “Sorry for the… for the whole thing. It would’ve been fine if I had just shut up.”

“None of that,” Joel taps her knee before he stands up, producing some terrible, gross noise on his joints. “You did what you had to do.”  

Dina invades her house sometime during Joel’s legendary search for the first aid kit they used to keep in the kitchen but is somehow not there (she is not involved at all, surely), talking so fast Ellie feels dizzy as she tries to figure out what the hell she’s talking about. Dina has a habit of doing that, sometimes.

“You’re talking too fast,” Ellie confesses, sheepish.  

Dina sighs – it’s not important, she says – and wraps her arms around Ellie’s neck, chin resting on her shoulder, slightly swaying Ellie side to side. Having Dina so close is something Ellie’s growing to love.

She loves a lot about Dina when she stops to think about it.

When she traces a bruise that’s already blooming on her jaw, Ellie entertains the thought of closing the distance between them and just kiss her. It doesn't even need to be that great. Or knock her breath away or anything like that. It just needs to happen. Dina  _stares_  at her and she bites her cheek, embarrassed, feeling a lot like she got caught doing something wrong. Dina smiles, unaware of her internal conflict, leaning in to kiss the unbruised skin of her left cheekbone, lips staying there until the sound of the first aid kid clattering loudly on the kitchen table makes her turn.

Joel doesn't say anything, but her palms start sweating anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i remember i started writing this first but i found it too short & tried to write about what happened during the fight & somehow the fight turned into less of a "hey, this person was being stupid and i punched them" and more of a "this person knows abt me, could cause serious harm if the information spread around and i'm scared."
> 
> so count this as a completely different scenario and another (small!) oneshot? drabble? seriously, no idea.


	3. Chapter 3

Dina sits cross-legged on the ground receiving the scolding of a lifetime from her mother and Ellie chokes back a laugh when she notices how she actually _looks_ guilty, gaze stuck to her shoes as she takes small sips from a mug. Her brother stays at a safe distance from the scene, not unlike Ellie herself, trying to make his tall frame fit behind the half-wall separating the kitchen and the room that doubles duty both as a mess hall and a meeting place for important announcements. It's almost crowded with the patrol team, with their worried parents and friends and the overly-curious people that in part, had the decency to blankets, towels and the warmest clothes they could find.

She absently scratches a small cut of a knife on her palm, one of the many reasons to hate kitchen duty. Along with the endless hours of peeling potatoes. Ellie sees an opening when Dina’s mom spots her son and she plops down beside Dina, wincing when she feels her jeans being soaked with water. Apparently, the whole patrol found their way on a river. How or why they ended up there is a mystery. And she remembered that way, way too late.

Dina immediately clings to her, finding shelter on the inside of Ellie's oversized jacket, huge enough to fit both of them. "Sharing is caring," she says, voice briefly muffled by fabric.

Ellie snorts, doesn’t protest when Dina lays a wet mop of hair on her shoulder, shivering despite the massive sweater she’s wearing. She puts an arm around her smaller shoulders, rubs up and down her back to provide some warmth, as insignificant as it is. “What happened?”

“Peter happened. I told him the river was too deep to walk across but he wouldn’t listen. Even got his ass stuck in there, the idiot,” she frowns, eyes burning holes on the back of said guy. She looks at Ellie and lifts the mug of what's probably milk, the only thing available to drink other than water. “Do you want some?"

“Is it milk?”

“Of course it’s milk.”

Ellie accepts the offer and tries not to think her mouth was right there. It's weird enough that she's even conscious of it. Dina's drying her hair with a towel, her curls frizzy and stuck to conflicting directions and Ellie always thought she was pretty, but she’s blooming after her sixteenth birthday. And it's not even her overactive imagination making things up. Dina is different. A good different. 

Dina side-eyes her, stopping for a second before resuming her task. “What?”

“Your hair…”

“Ugh, I know.”

“No, it’s,” The words are mellow and lazy on her tongue, like the liquid she just drank. “It’s really pretty. You should let it down more often.”

After Dina kisses her cheek, hand freezing cold on her temple and lips so, so so warm, Ellie twists the coin on the front pocket of her jeans to try and concentrate on something else, anything but how amazing it feels to have Dina close like that. It can't happen, this whole _falling in love with your best friend who also happens to be dating_ thing. It won't.

“You’re so sweet sometimes, Ellie.”

“Thanks?” That earns her another kiss on the cheek. “Be, uh, more careful next time.”

“Will do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kinda hate this but i'll have an aneurism if i have to look at it again. thanks


	4. Chapter 4

The night is quiet and they're quiet, too – haven't said a word after wishing each other good night half an hour before going to bed. Ellie drags her fingers up and down Dina's spine, feels goosebumps when she settles her hand on the curve of her back. Dina spends more nights in Ellie's bed than her own and sometimes Ellie allows herself to daydream of Dina calling her home _home,_ of them never having to say goodbye after meeting up.

(There’s a new couple in town, the gold bands they started wearing on the fourth finger of their left hands – why so specific, she wonders – glinting under the afternoon sun and Ellie wants that, too. She wants so much, voices so little.)

The kisses they share get slower by the second and Ellie murmurs softly against her lips, frees the words stuck on her throat for years. She's sure, so sure it is the right time and the right place but a weight settles on her stomach and stays there.

Dina smiles fully then, not like Ellie who looks away and bites her cheek when her smile gets too wide. She turns her face to kiss Ellie's hand where it rests on her jawline – there's an eyelash stuck on her cheek and Ellie aches to brush it away, but she's just so afraid the moment will shatter if she moves an inch. Maybe she'll wake up on the couch like all that never happened, like they never kissed or were this physically close.

"Oh, Ellie. I love you, too."

 


	5. Chapter 5

Ellie manages to swallow the water she’s drinking before it splatters all over her clothes or before she chokes and dies right there on a clinic of all places. It wasn’t a good idea to drink from a water bottle while lying down to start with. "Do you," she lowers her voice down to a whisper when Morgan passes by the corridor and warns them to be quiet, like she didn't just spend twenty minutes talking about her own wedding. "Dina, do you even have a ring?

“Nope,” she stops organizing a box they use to store antibiotics – in alphabetical lettering, as ordered – and frowns. “Do you mind?”

"Were you raised in a basement that never saw the light of day? You need rings, dumbass. Two of them," Ellie leans back on the old leather sofa they keep on the clinic’s office and takes a glance at Dina, a frown still present between her eyebrows and not a hint of a laugh on her lips. She feels her stomach drop, anxiety and hopefulness tugging on her mind. "Call me crazy, but I'm getting the impression you're serious about this."

Dina turns to face her for the first time with an annoyed look etched on her face, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Oh. Tomorrow?"

Morgan offered to let other couples in town get hitched at the same place and the same time and Ellie stopped listening to her about five minutes into the conversation, but she thinks she said _something something morale something low supplies and that’s why we’re doing this_.

"Doesn't need to be tomorrow. And you can say no. I know it's," she looks away and makes a vague motion with her hands. "Anyway. That whole marriage thing stopped existing before we were even born and it's not a big deal, really. We don't need to convince ourselves or anyone that we're really serious about this. Us."

While she's talking Ellie realizes she has to grasp the moment while it's  _there_  and not just on her mind, gets up from the couch so quick she almost trips over her own shoes and pulls Dina into a kiss she's extremely slow to react to – until she brings her closer by placing a hand on the back of Ellie's neck, presses slow, soft pecks on her lips when she breaks apart for air, looking between her lips and the door they forgot to close. It's probably a good thing Julia isn't awake yet.

"Does this mean you want to..."

"Yes," Ellie exclaims in the lowest voice she can muster, barely able to suppress her excitement. "Of course," she adds for emphasis. "Let's find a ring."

"Two," Dina points out.

–

"Okay, Joel found them. Not me," Dina bites her lip, stares at her expectantly as Ellie takes one, two rings from a leather pouch and places them in the palm of her hand. "What do you think? Worst case scenario, you break up with me. Best case scenario, we elope."

Ellie stays still for a moment, mouth opening and closing before she can say anything. She rushes forward to put her arms around her girl, feels her settle her head comfortably on the crook of her neck and Ellie tells her that she's happy, she really is. She can say these things now. Being vulnerable no longer means being exposed. The community is thriving, the people are good and _they have rings_.

"I still don't know if one of them will fit you,"

"I'll marry you anyway," Ellie can feel her laugh against her mouth when she tells her that and she's so, so in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) every time i post something i think: this is the mushiest shit i've ever written in my life. every time i surprise myself by writing something even mushier.  
> 2) i couldn't sleep last night and came to the conclusion dina is either a gemini or a libra lmao. ellie has major aquarius/aries vibes! fuck yeah i love insomnia  
> 3) they actually didn't get married the following day, but a few months after they first discussed it. should've made it clear somewhere :(


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: the first time they danced with each other.

Joel disappeared after giving a slight tap to her shoulder and a lengthy rant about safety and having fun. Ellie doesn't think being by yourself in the corner of a place you've spent more than five minutes at while people you can't remember the name of laugh and dance classifies as fun. She's aware Joel wants her to make more friends. More than two, as if that's even a realistic scenario. It doesn't even feel worth trying, so she settles with playing with the barn cat instead as she watches Dina having the time of her life with a guy she's seen around quite a bit.

She quickly realizes the mistake she made by smiling back at Dina after the music reached its end. She walks towards the corner she's at and can't possibly be looking for anyone else because there's no one else, no one but her. "I can't dance," she blurts out when Dina sits on the chair beside her, all pretense and sweet-voiced. And adds, "I don't want to look stupid."

"I won't let you look stupid," Dina answers simply. "Even if you do look stupid, which you won't, no one will mind."

She looks around and confirms that sure, everyone is either drunk or too worried about themselves. Yet, Ellie doubts people won't look at them, not with Dina being the way she is. Making a show out of everything she does and whatnot. A few curls escaped from her braid only to end up plastered on her forehead, the sweat there shining a bit too brightly on her face. It's all a bit gross, but also kind of cute. Mostly cute.Their eyes meet and she Ellie ducks her head, swallows a lump the size of a fist before nodding. She needs to put herself out there if she wants to stop being so fucking _weird_.

"Ellie," she calls sweetly as she walks back into the crowd, facing her all the while. "I knew one day you would see things my way."

"Shut up. I can still change my mind, you know?"

"Mm. All talk," Dina teases. "Your hands go here," she sets Ellie's hands around her waist. "And I just do my thing," she places her hands on Ellie's neck. "Which happens to be this." Maybe it's the long-sleeved shirt she's wearing, the hot Wyoming weather that attracts termites to the lightbulbs, or she's really blushing hard enough to feel the temperature rising on the room. Probably the first two, but still. Dina gives instructions when they start swaying slowly – when I move left, _you_  move left – and she steps on her shoes more than just a few times. No complaints are spoken. "Eye contact is key, but I'll let it slide this time."

"Thanks. You're so kind."

"The paragon of kindness," her chin rests on Ellie's shoulder, something that can't be comfortable when she's noticeably taller.

Ellie scans the room, warmth creeping up on the tip of her ears when Joel lifts a glass of something that looks poisonous at best before going back to whatever he was doing. The music fades off to a song definitely not meant for any kind of slow dance. "Dina," she mumbles. "The song –"

She pulls back, looking very much embarrassed. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't," she lowers her voice that seemed so much higher all of sudden. "I didn't realize it changed. That wasn't so bad, was it?" Her hands are still around Ellie's neck, thumb smoothing the curve of her jaw as she smiles.

"No," Ellie whispers, looking at her as if for the first time. "Not at all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes being a lesbian just means you gotta slow dance with the girl who happens to be your best friend (that you have a crippling crush on)


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing Dina becomes aware of is the sound of a voice. Then comes the coldness on the tips of her fingers, of the breath in her lungs and an insistent pressure knocking on the back of her head. She opens her eyes – _when did she close them?_ – and everything is way too fucking bright than it ever was before.

"Holy shit. For a second I thought," Ellie shakes her head, shrugging the thought away. "Are you okay?"

"What–"

"Someone hit your head, like, real hard. With a fucking pipe."

"That's not good," she mumbles, touching her head unconsciously.

It hurts.

Dina doesn't know what she expected.

"Yeah." Ellie slips her backpack off her shoulder, setting down the first aid kit she always brings with her, the contents inside dwindling in number with each patrol. "Not good."

Dina leans her back against the pale green walls filled with graffiti, sees one of her own beside a broken television, black and smudged with rainwater. Ellie relays the events of the day as she works on cleaning the wounded area carefully and making sure her brains aren't about to spill out of her skull at any given moment. She seems to catch up quick when Dina realizes she may or may not have ruined both patrol _and_ her day, laying a hand over hers until her worry fades.

"They can take care of themselves," she says, rolling a gauze around her head and keeping it in place with thick, yellowish tape. "By the way, you look like an idiot."

Ellie throws her arm over her shoulder as delicately as she can and the world still manages to turn into a mess of colors and sensations all blurred together. She makes it to her horse on stubbornness alone, feeling like she's either going to pass out again or throw up her insides, whichever came first.

"Hey," Ellie stops her before she can try to get on the saddle by herself. "Hey, Dina. Don't do that." Ellie ushers her up, holding her by her midsection the whole time before she settles behind her with an arm around her waist and another on the reins of her horse. "We're going now, okay? Please don't do anything gross. I'll die."

Not surprisingly, Ellie watches her more than she watches the road, throwing her worried glances every ten seconds. Dina has a hand over the arm she keeps around her waist, tracing the freckles there in a thousand different patterns, eyes slipping closed more than once.

"Just like you."

"What?"

"I look like an idiot." She feels a bit drunk. Sounds _very_ drunk. "Just like you."

A puff of air hits her neck when Ellie snorts. "Is that what you say to your best friend that just saved your life?"

The compound can already be seen in the distance, their location (luckily) not being that far to start with. Dina ponders on what to say as she looks around, vaguely recognizing each patch of wildflowers, each sign. "Thanks for taking care of me," she looks up at Ellie, wonders how she can look so _good_ at such a terrible angle. "Really."

"I, uh, care about you, you know. You're not a total asshole most of the time."

She's half-aware of the groaning sound of the gates being open, of Ellie getting her off the horse and into her arms, the light of the medic's lantern on her pupils. She clings close to her the whole time in the clinic, even tighter when Ellie looks at the door, clearly asking herself if she should leave.

Dina holds the cuff of her flannel, smudged with blood. Ellie, of course, stays.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have an exam tomorrow but i couldn't get this out of my head so. yeah


End file.
